Image/graphic field that works with Reader

[George_Johnson]

Acrobat allows you to set up a button to display an image/graphic, and allows the buttonImportIcon JavaScript field method to allow a user to select the button icon. This used to work with Reader but was taken away for some reason. Forms create with LiveCycle Designer allow for an image field that can work with Reader, but Acrobat no longer does. There is no good reason not to allow for this type of functionality.

[George_Johnson]

Yes indeed! I'd like to thank everyone who requested that this feature be restored, as that's exactly what happened. As before, what it does now with Reader is allow the user to select a page from a PDF as the source for a button icon. While it would have been ideal to also allow you to select from among the common image types as with an XFA image field (JPEG, PNG, TIFF, GIF), this is not the case at this time. But unlike back when it was removed with Reader 6, there are many easy ways for users to convert images to PDF, including Preview (or anything else) on the Mac, Word, Open Office, and any number of other readily available and free tools. It's even possible to create an XFA form that contains an image field, and after it's populated with an image, use that PDF for the source of the button icon. (There's something wrong about that, but it works.) Since a PDF page can be so much more than a simple image (i.e., vector graphics, text, multiple images), it is actually considerably more flexible than a simple image field. I have hope that the common image formats will be supported in a future version/update, but that's a new feature request.

I'm working on an article/tutorial that will present more information and I'll update this thread when it's ready. Thanks again!

[Brad S.]

I can't say I'm all that thrilled about this. I don't expect the end users of my forms to first convert images to a PDF before insertion. My biggest example is the aforementioned industrial service report for one client that can have up to 60 survey images in one document. I need them to be able to upload 4:3 or 3:2 images from their cameras into the document along with 18 pages worth of other info, which is diagrams to draw on, text fields, checklists, and that sort of thing. I've suggested we do this other ways, namely through a web based system, but they love the PDF doc I made for them. They don't have to worry about how it got to be what it is, and they feel it's quite user friendly. Unfortunately (or is that fortunately for me?) every time they make any significant changes to the layout I need to go all the way back to InDesign and then through the Acrobat/LiveCycle process to get all the styles, image functionality, tab orders, etc. sorted out. Although I've made some improvements to my workflow as the project has been evolving, it's a rather time consuming process.

[try67]

Yes, it doesn't sound like a great improvement if the only thing you can

import is PDF files, which you can't create unless you have Acrobat (or

some other 3rd party application), in which case, you don't really need

this feature in the first place.

Well, I guess something is better than nothing...

[George_Johnson]

It's much better than nothing. The workaround of using an XFA form with one or more image fields to use as the source for the button icons is probably the simplest approach, especially now that Reader is able to save a non-enabled document.

[try67]

Only now you'll have to purchase LC as a separate product, if I understood

correctly... And you still have the issue of it not being available for Mac.

[George_Johnson]

It's true that Designer isn't included with Acrobat Pro 11. It's been available as a separate purchase for a while now and is only $29. But for those who won't have access, I'll be happy to post a form that can be used.

[radzmar]

Don't forget to mention, that XFA-forms still have to be Reader-enabled to be savable with Reader.

George Johnson wrote:

It's much better than nothing. The workaround of using an XFA form with one or more image fields to use as the source for the button icons is probably the simplest approach, especially now that Reader is able to save a non-enabled document.

[George_Johnson]

Yes, thanks for the reminder.

[lrosenth]

Brad - just get those folks to use Acrobat and you'll be all set.   They are expecting too much from Reader!

[Mike Tulak]

I don't believe this is too much from reader, Foxit supports this functionality, it just appears that such a simple function is inhibited very disappointing for small business designers.

Mike

[George_Johnson]

With the latest release of Adobe Reader (15.023.20053) that was made available earlier today, Reader (Windows/Mac) now supports importing the following image types when using the buttonImportIcon JavaScript method: JPEG, PNG, TIFF, GIF

It even defaults to all of those types when the browse for image dialog is displayed. The latest version of Acrobat now includes a new image field type to support this, but it's really nothing more than a button that includes the following Mouse Up JavaScript:

event.target.buttonImportIcon();

So while the latest version of Reader is required to take advantage of this new feature, earlier versions of Acrobat  can be used to make a compatible "image" field.

This version of Reader/Acrobat also supports a native date picker, the same one that has been available with XFA forms for many years. To support this, Acrobat adds new date field type, which is really nothing more than a text field with the format type set to Date, so such fields authored with previous versions of Acrobat will include a date picker when used with these new versions. When such a field is used with older versions, it will behave like it always did, so there are no backwards compatibility problems.

Thank you Adobe!

[BSisson]

The issue is that many of us would like to use the cameras built into our phones and tablets while were are filling in forms.  Not sure how many phones will save a picture as PDF or link automatically to something asking for a PDF..

[George_Johnson]

The buttonImportIcon method is supported by Readdle's PDF Expert, which is available for iOS devices. It can prompt you to take a picture or you can use an image from any available photo library.

[sosears]

Yes. Please stop taking functionality AWAY. It's lazy, and just wrong.

[jooleedesign]

George,

Were you able to put a tutorial together? I also have a design client that has generic forms and would like their clients to be able to insert their logo in the top corner to personalize the forms for their businesses. If this is possible, what are the steps?

Thanks in advance!

[BSisson]

I will add my voice to the people who want to be able to insert a photo into a form.  I assumed it was a given when I was building my application, sure was a surprise when it wasn't there....

[lrosenth]

You have two ways to accomplish this.

1 – Use an XFA-based form and Reader-enable it.

2 – Convert the photo to a PDF and have users use Reader XI.

[purgeru]

I would like that feature too.

[lrosenth]

A button form field can be used this way with Reader XI and later w/o any extra requirements, just a line or two of JavaScript.

[Brad S.]

Yeah, but nobody wants to convert a bunch of images to PDF first (up to 60 per form in my case). It's a ridiculous and time consuming requirement. My client just wants to use JPG images, end of story. Why does this have to be so difficult?

And whoever said LiveCycle designer was only $29... it's $299 when it used to come free with Acrobat Pro. More disappointment from Adobe.

[lrosenth]

That is true, that it still requires the use of a PDF for the image and not just JPEG. We are certainly looking at that for the future.

As for LC Designer, that hasn’t been part of the Acrobat package for more than 5 years…nothing new here.

[George_Johnson]

That is true, that it still requires the use of a PDF for the image and not just JPEG.   We are certainly looking at that for the future.

That would be really great!

[Brad S.]

October 15th 2012 is certainly not more than 5 years ago. And why would you be looking at something for the future when it was a feature in the past that you removed? Why did you remove it in the first place? Do you not understand how disruptive removing features are once people have worked them into their workflow? It's like removing snap to grid handles in the lastest of Illustrator. I know it's off topic, but why on Earth would you do that? You could work image fields into InDesign and fix InDesign's interactive form styling while you're at it. That would solve a lot of problems. Oh, and fix the horrific tab order dialogue in InDesign too. It has to be one of the worst bits of the CC suite UI of all.

[George_Johnson]

And whoever said LiveCycle designer was only $29... it's $299 when it used to come free with Acrobat Pro. More disappointment from Adobe.

The $29 price was a temporary upgrade price. When Acrobat 11 was released, you could get the LiveCycle Designer upgrade for free for a period of time if you had Acrobat 10.

[Brad S.]

Unfortunately, despite the fact I've been a CC subscriber since pretty much day one, I was never made aware of any upgrade offer for LiveCycle.